Two weeks.
It had been two weeks since Hyerim had spoken to Haechan.
At first, they would make eye contact in the hallways, and she would watch Haechan excuse himself from his friends and try to walk over to her, but she would hurriedly look away, and speedwalk in the other direction. She didn't mean to avoid him at first, just wanting to delay their conversation to save some awkwardness, but the longer she avoided him, the more she procrastinated on talking to him.
And his graduation was nearing sooner and sooner.
It was now common news of his prestigious sport scholarship to Korea uni. Sometimes, Hyerim would catch glimpses of him in the hall being swarmed by people congratulating him. Then, they would make eye contact, and his smile would falter, and Hyerim would run away.
Stood in front of her locker, she thought back to when they were still friends. She remembered asking him a question while they were sat in his room, eating krispy kreme donuts.
"Why were you such a bitch about taking photos back then?" She asked him, curiously looking at the boy seated next to her with a donut stuffed in his mouth. His eyes crinkled, obviously finding something funny.
"Just wanted an excuse for you to be around," he had told her nonchalantly, shoving half a donut in her open mouth, and eating the other half.
She looked at the box in her locker. It contained sticky notes that Haechan sometimes left on her locker, or slotted in between the ventilation metal, or tucked in one of her textbooks. He had begun to leave them so often that he bought her a cute little pink cardboard box that she had decorated with stickers, plastic rhinestones and ribbons.
Hyerim had kept every single one of those notes.
Her hand raised to stretch towards the familiar box, but she tugged it back down, shaking her head before leaning down to shove books in her bag. A book fell from the pile that she had on the floor, so she leaned to grab it, but a hand beat her to it. A familiar, tanned, veiny hand with slim fingers, clean nails and a recognisable ring.
She gulped, swallowing before raising her head to look at the familiar hockey player stood in front of her.
"H-hi." She cursed herself internally for stuttering.
"Hi," Haechan said, handing her book back to her. She dipped her head, taking it softly from his grasp and putting it in her bag.
Not sure what to do now, she turned to leave, but the boy stopped her with a tentative touch to her shoulder. She flinched, looking at the black-haired boy warily.
"I think we should talk."
❆
Talk, Hyerim thought to herself bitterly as they sat in his car parked outside her apartment. The whole ride home had been deathly silent, neither of them saying anything. And it wasn't their usual comfortable silence; instead, an icy, uncomfortable, awkward silence.
"S-so...what did you wanna talk about?" she asked him, not daring to swivel her head towards where Haechan was seated in the driver's seat beside her. But she could hear his varsity jacket rustle as he turned towards her.
"Hyerim."
And that's all it took for her to break. Her name emitting from his lips with a small puff of air, a hint of desperation, frustration, maybe sadness? She wasn't sure, but she knew at this moment, she had never wanted to touch him so bad before, to caress his hair like she usually did when they were watching a movie together, to poke at his cheeks where his moles were, to feel his plump, velvety lips on hers.
"Yeah?" Her voice broke slightly as she looked at him, lump in her throat growing as the two teenagers made eye contact in the low light. Hyerim could make out Haechan's eyes glistening slightly.
"Is this it for us?"
She bit her bottom lip at his words, clenching her fists slightly. Avoiding eye contact now, she looked down at her lap, not wanting to say anything.
Haechan lightly scoffed, running his fingers through the inky threads of his hair.
"So this is really it. After months of friendship, after everything, after all the memories we've made with each other. We're just never going to talk again when I go to university, we'll just pretend that we never met. Is this what you want?"
Hyerim stayed silent at his rant, eyes shifting up to gaze at the dark road ahead.
"Aren't you going to say something?" The boy let out a frustrated cry, and this was the moment when Hyerim realised he was crying. Alarmed, she looked over to see Haechan leaning his head against the window, one hand gripped onto the steering wheel, the other entangled in his hair.
"I don't know what to say..." she whispered, trying not to cry herself, but she couldn't help it, letting out a whimper before covering her mouth with her hand, trying to conceal her tears.
"Just tell me, do you want us to be strangers again?"
Hyerim sniffled loudly at his sentence. "You were the one that told us we had no chance with each other! What did you expect us to become after you confessed like that? You know we can't go back to the way we were, now that we know that we both..." Her voice trailed off as she clenched her jaw, squeezing her eyes shut so that some tears fell and stained her hoodie.
"I was fucking selfish, and I'm sorry. But can't we at least...talk? You don't even look at me in the hallways anymore, for fuck's sake!" He cried, leaning his head back into the car seat. "I've tried to talk to you so many times for these two weeks, and you keep running! You keep disappearing, and all I wanted to do was to talk to you, to try and fix things, to say goodbye before I leave in a week, and you don't even fucking look at me."
By the end of his little monologue, Hyerim was straight up bawling, biting into the sleeve of her hoodie.
"I can't look at you," she managed to choke out. "I can't look at you because you're the only guy I've ever liked! You're the only dickhead that I've managed to feel something romantic for, and then you tell me that we have no chance, that you're gonna leave for university and we're never gonna be anything more than just friends. Do you know how much that hurts?" She turned to grab the door handle, not wanting to be in the car anymore, but he held onto her hoodie sleeve tightly.
"It's because I'm scared!"
Stopping her actions, she looked up at the boy, with tears streaming down his face, cheeks and nose red, hair tousled and messy.
"Do you know how long I've liked you for?" Haechan let out a pained chuckle, looking down to shake his head, then looked back up into the girl's eyes.
"Two whole years."
Hyerim's mouth fell open.
"Two fucking years. I saw you when you had just transferred here from god-knows-where, and all I knew was that you were the most beautiful woman I had ever laid my eyes on."
She rolled her eyes at his confession, but he continued.
"I had never properly liked a girl before I saw you, but I knew I had to talk to you. But fuck, you were always so quiet, so shy. I tried to look for you during lunch, or during free periods, but you never showed up. Sometimes after school, I would go to the art club to catch a glimpse of you if I didn't have ice hockey practice."
By now, he was holding onto her arm with desperation. He gazed into her eyes as if he was reading her soul, and Hyerim couldn't do anything except stare back at him, lips parted.
"Don't you understand? It's only been you, Hyerim."
And that was her breaking point. She leaned in, her free hand grabbing Haechan's jaw to pull him into a kiss. To be completely honest, she had no idea what she was doing, but it seemed to be good as Haechan groaned softly, his hand snaking around her waist as he tilted his head to kiss her deeper.
It was a different kiss from their first kiss. Their first one was shy, tentative, hesitating. This one, however, was filled with passion, a hunger. It was laced with anger, with sadness, with relief.
Hyerim broke the kiss off after a few seconds, letting go of the boy's shirt that she had been gripping onto. Her eyes wavered, shuffling back in the seat.
"I don't know why I did that," she breathed out, and Haechan seemed equally as shellshocked, lips parted slightly as he stared at her.
"Do you...do you regret it?"
She paused.
"Perhaps."
There was a beat of silence between them as their gaze wandered between each other's lips.
"I should go."
"Forever? Or just now?" Haechan's hand latched onto her sleeve again.
"Haechan, you and I both know..." Hyerim's hand reached up to unclasp Haechan's fingers from the grey hoodie sleeve, and she turned to the car door, weakly pushing it open. This time, Haechan didn't stop her as she stepped out of the car, turning to close it.
"Hyerim."
Her name made her pause her actions, stopping to listen to Haechan as he leaned across the passenger seat to look at the girl stood outside the car.
"Break my heart. Break it a thousand fucking times. It was only yours to break anyway."
He shot her a weak smile, and Hyerim felt her world crumble all over again, suppressing a sob as she covered her mouth with her hand again, shaking her head harshly as she quickly closed the car door, running towards the apartment lobby door with tears streaming down her face.
Later that night, after she had cried in the shower, and wallowed in self pity while eating dinner, she gathered the courage to look outside her window at the street outside. Haechan's black Porsche was still parked there, unmoving, in the same spot. It took all her strength to drag herself away from the window.
Just as she was about to settle into bed and retire for the night, she peered outside the window again. A bit of her had some hope he was still down there, and she would run down in her pajamas and they would hug and kiss and cry and apologise to each other. And another half hoped that he had left, leaving her life and carrying all the complicated feeling and tears and sadness with him. Swallowing all of the emotions welling up in her eyes, she drew back the curtains and looked.
And his car was gone.
buckle up yall